Category: Uncategorized

Migration corridor invasion in Sri Lanka

National parks vary in size greatly across the world. Many national parks in Africa can cover thousands of square miles, unfortunately this is not the case in match of Asia.

Small reserves are not capable of sustaining as a significant population of large predators or large herbivores. In countries like India and Sri Lanka, therefore, migration corridors between protected zones are left free allowing animals to transverse the gap between them and to operate as one mega population.

Many of these reserves are so small that without these migration corridors the populations would likely die out in a relatively short period of time.

Migration corridors between small reserves make the reserves viable. Therefore, invasion of these corridors threaten the future of the whole reserve

This is why the current invasion of the Dahaiyagala Wildlife Sanctuary in Sri Lanka can be so damaging. This wild Life sanctuary links and number of essential areas of elephant habitat, but without the connection all these populations are at severe risk of disappearing.

Udawalawe national park is the country second most visited, so is essential for the tourism revenue that comes into the country. Yet this is the the elephant population that is put it risk buy this invasion. Of course the other problem with this invasion, is that it greatly increases the likelihood of substantial conflict between elephants and humans as they will continue to try to take the same route despite the blockage now in the way.

About 300 farmers had invaded, after rumours had circulated that the area was about to get delisted. Although they were successfully removed, some of the land was cleared first.

The migration corridor is also essential for the long-term survival of the areas leopards and samber deer.

The park generates millions of dollars of revenue each year and so is an essential economic revenue stream in the area.

Estimates are that least 10,000 local people rely on the park as their primary source of income. As such it seems quite astounding me selfish that the desire 300 people to steal this land might threaten the incomes of such a large group.

Given the issue is so clear-cut you would hope the authorities will stop this happening again but it does not seem that they are willing to take strong actions to stop this group from damaging the environment, and destroying the livelihoods of many of their neighbours.

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The worlds energy imbalance doubled between 2005 and 2019

The world is warming. This is something that is now essentially settled. Despite fossil fuel companies arguing the reverse, it was their research 40 years ago (and more) that brought the concerns of global warming first to the attention of humans (though initially they kept these discoveries quiet, and it has only come to light in recent years).

This new research shows that the world is now trapping twice as much energy as it was just 15 years ago.

As around 90% of this energy ends up in the oceans, this is a big problem. While the southern ice cap sits largely on land, the Northern icecap floats on the oceans. This is unfortunately one of the feedback loops that we know about. Ice reflects sunlight (and therefore heat) back into space. As the oceans warm this ice melts, replacing white reflective surface with deep blue absorbing surface – meaning that the oceans then absorb still more heat.

The unfortunate conclusion of the study was that unless this uptake of heat slows fast bigger shifts in climate should be expected.

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Students have protested at the Science museum in London over shell funding a climate crisis exhibition

It does seem to be rather self-serving, if you are putting together a exhibition on the threat that the climate crisis is producing, and you allow one of the biggest oil and gas companies in the world to fund it.

Much of the exhibition talks about carbon capture and storage (something that has not been demonstrated at significant scale, and yet would have to be catching billions of tonnes of carbon per year if it is to have a chance of helping) as well as nature based solutions.

The police cleared the building at the end of the day, ending what had been intended to be an overnight occupation.

It certainly seems that shell is trying to whitewash their company (should that be greenwash) and this should not be allowed. Rather, shell should be spending thousands of times more money on actually solving the climate crisis. Furthermore, ideas like carbon capture should not be allowed to be touted, until it has been demonstrated at scale. Finally, there is another problem. As far as the climate crisis is concerned, any captured carbon should be locked away for millions of years, yet at the moment the majority is either used to help with oil and gas extraction, or is turned into synthetic fuels – neither of these help in any way with forestalling the continued move towards run-away climate change.

SHELL MUST DO BETTER.

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Holiday absence

Hello!

I have been away with my family, and for the time being this is a one man show. I am hoping that as restrictions on travel list, it might become a bigger enterprise – with your support. We have some wildlife destinations already listed but hope to greatly expand this.

Our holiday was in Devon in the south west of the UK, close to the river otter.

This river is famous in the UK as back in 2008 a family of beavers appeared. They became quite a popular attraction.

Continue reading “Holiday absence”
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Killer whale sighting off Cornwall

John Coe (an old and very well known killer whale) and Aquarius, have been sighted off the coast of Cornwall.

A rare sighting in the south of the UK, this British pod of Orca is heavily endangered. With no calves sighted since 1990 the sightings are only likely to get rarer still.

One of the main causes, is human pollution, due to chemicals such as PCB that wash into the seas of the UK. These can lead to poor health and infertility in the animals in our waters.

This video clip above comes from ITV news, and is hosted on youtube

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In the UK the government has mandated waste food collection by 2023 – but no funding

A significant percentage of UK household waste is waste food.

Now it is true that better planning, better reuse can greatly reduce this. However only food that is uncooked can be put in a compost heap. The UK produces about 5 million tonnes of food waste year. If this was collected it could reduce emissions dramatically, as well as potentially creating significant biogas for power generation.

Continue reading “In the UK the government has mandated waste food collection by 2023 – but no funding”
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Further threat for Nairobi national park

The first national park to be formed in Kenya would appear to be under threat. Consisting of only 45 square miles, it is unique around the world as the wilderness comes deep into the city, allowing you to view many wild species with skyscrapers as a backdrop.

There are few places in the world where you can see wild lions against a city backdrop

Wildlife populations have crashed in the last 70 or so years. In the past huge migrations would bring 30,000 wildebeest to visit each year, and animals such as zebra have had population falls of approaching 50% in just 9 years.

Continue reading “Further threat for Nairobi national park”
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Help me spread the word

The aim of this blog has always been two-fold. The first is to raise the profile of important goings-on in the natural world conservation, and highlight exciting and alarming news.

The second, perhaps more significant aim, is to simplify wild travel and to increase the number of people doing it. I realize at the moment for the majority of people travel is the last thing on their mind. However, the huge reduction of tourism numbers is hitting protected areas around the world.

I have added social media buttons to the posts. Please do consider sharing articles of interest. In the last few days we have added the ability for people to request to work with the website, and in the long-term this is what is going to be necessary if our goals are going to be met. If you find articles that interest you, do share them.

Likewise, as the epidemic comes under control and people can travel, please do highlight our site to businesses working with wildlife. We are particularly keen to grow our “in the shadow of mankind” listings. These are wildlife that lives alongside humans, not in a reserve away from us. Animals living in this sort of situation, cover almost all species, but as you can imaging these are the most at risk. If the site can increase visitors to these places, perhaps they will remain wild?

Please help spread the word, help the site grow to try to meet the huge task we have set ourselves, as we cannot do this on our own. Also to note, we have recently added a translation plugin- I hope that this is of use. Unfortunately, the translated versions will not get picked up by google, word of mouth is likely to be the best way around this.

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5 viable northern white rhino embryos have been created

The Northern white rhino, an animal that existed in the DRC and parts of the world like that, still had numbers of about 2000 in the 1980s. Unfortunately there are now only two.

The BBC seven worlds one planet series, included a short clip about the last 2 northern white rhinos, With thousands living wild, just 35 years ago, can we save these animals?

Humans are belatedly trying to do something about this, and have managed to create 5 seemingly viable northern white rhino embryos.

These can then be put in the surrogate Southern white rhino mothers, giving the ability to increase the population from the current 2, to a potential 7.

Continue reading “5 viable northern white rhino embryos have been created”
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CO2 has only been pushed 400 parts per million by humnas, so why should we care

Climate denialists (which is a more accurate word than climate skeptics) would continue to claim well there’s only 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide, that can’t be caused for the global warming. However looking at historical data, in 1750 around the time that the industrial revolution in the UK got going and we started burning significant amounts of coal, the carbon dioxide concentrations at that points were around about 280.

In other words carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere and now roughly 50% higher than they work historically.

Continue reading “CO2 has only been pushed 400 parts per million by humnas, so why should we care”
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